So let me lie, and, calm as they, Let beam upon my inward view Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue-- Eyes too expressive to be blue, Too lovely to be grey. Ah, Quiet, all things feel thy balm! Those blue hills too, this river's flow, Were restless once, but long ago. Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow; Their joy is in their calm. 5. LONGING Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to me! Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth, Come now, and let me dream it truth; And part my hair, and kiss my brow, And say: _My love! why sufferest thou?_ Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. DESPONDENCY The thoughts that rain their steady glow Like stars on life's cold sea, Which others know, or say they know-- They never shone for me. Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit's sky, But they will not remain. They light me once, they hurry by; And never come again. SELF-DECEPTION Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory Of possessing powers not our share? --Since man woke on earth, he knows his story, But, before we woke on earth, we were. Long, long since, undower'd yet, our spirit Roam'd, ere birth, the treasuries of God; Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit, Ask'd an outfit for its earthly road. Then, as now, this tremulous, eager being Strain'd and long'd and grasp'd each gift it saw; Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing Staved us back, and gave our choice the law. Ah, whose hand that day through Heaven guided Man's new spirit, since it was not we? Ah, who sway'd our choice, and who decided What our gifts, and what our wants should be? For, alas! he left us each retaining Shreds of gifts which he refused in full. Still these waste us with their hopeless straining, Still the attempt to use them proves them null. And on earth we wander, groping, reeling; Powers stir in us, stir and disappear. Ah! and he, who placed our master-feeling, Fail'd to place that master-feeling clear. We but dream we have our wish'd-for powers, Ends we seek we never shall attain. Ah! _some_ power exists there, which is ours? _Some_ end is there, we indeed may gain? DOVER BEACH